We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Liz Ross. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Liz below.

Liz, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Developing my Sex Ed Radio Show to educate adults about Sex Ed. I was abused from childhood to most of my life by my sibling and grew up without boundaries, discussions about consent, had no proper sex education then was raped when I was 21 by my partner at the time. After a lot of therapy, activism, and art. I created this show to educate the adults who didn’t get educated or feel they had a safe space to learn about sex, find resources or talk about it on a regular basis especially when uninformed adults are making laws affecting others. It was the regular contribution I could make on the world. With reproductive rights being constantly under attack and LGBTQ+ people being under attack especially in TX those are common topics with LGBTQ+ people being my most frequent guests as the community is often more comfortable talking about sex. It has led to incredible experiences, emotional interviews, and amazing opportunities. It has also led to horrible judgement from others assuming it was a sex and the city type show on dating apps in the past not sex ed despite it’s name.

Liz, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am nonbinary and pansexual.

I was born in Scotland, lived in Thailand from 2-4 where I was a child model, then moved to Ecuador for 6 months then Holland for 6 months and then Abilene, TX for 3 years before moving to Austin, TX. My father was in the oil industry. I got used to adapting to environments and making friends quickly. My undergrad is in theatre performance and production, and post graduation I did theatre, worked in games, tech and politics. I have a hat in the Smithsonian from the DNC in 2012 where I was a Delegate for Obama. I’ve acted, written, directed, produced, stage managed, costumed, run a light board, created audio for theatre, games and film, product managed, gamification, etc. I’ve built countless things from the ground up because I found it exciting. When the pandemic hit, most of my work vanished. I thankfully had a rental property. I had chronic pain from a car accident years prior and had been getting daily acupuncture which healed my plantar fasciitis preventing my need for surgery. I had been wanting to go back to school in something completely different to expand my knowledge on a different subject and this caught my fascination. I also love languages. I can speak Spanish pretty fluently, French conversationally, ASL conversationally, basic German, and I know Mandarin medical terms and herbs.

I went back to school for Traditional Chinese Medicine (Acupuncture and Herbology) which I’m finishing up my last semester of grad school now. Where I help people’s bodies heal themselves by assessing needs, creating a treatment plan and providing comprehensive care. I do Tuina, cupping, guasha, moxa and Shiatsu as well. Specialties are trauma healing, neurological disorders, muscular skeletal pain, needle sensitivity, anxiety, gut health, reproductive healthcare, LGBTQ+ health, NADA, community clinics. I built a partnership with the LGBTQ+ sexual health and wellness community clinic Ashwell in Austin where the school now provides acupuncture once a week. I went to India earlier this year and did a free community clinic in Rishikesh for a week. I treat at AOMA student clinic until April. Contact: [email protected] and request Liz Ross to schedule. Or contact [email protected] for post grad prospects.

I develop a Sex Ed Show on 91.7 FM KOOP livestreamed monthly Mondays 1-1:30 CST at www.koop.org where I talk about sex ed for adults. I cover everything from basic STI’s to menopause to BDSM and more. Anyone interested in being a guest, resources, information, etc can contact me at [email protected]

I am the Exec Director of TUBU Fest – Theatre For Us By Us. It is a three day playwright theatre festival put on by people with disabilities. www.tubufest.org or www.tubufest.com (website pending – under development) Festival submissions are open until March 1 and the festival launches July 18-20, 2024 at the Ground Floor Theatre in Austin, TX. Contact me at [email protected]

I currently contract with UT Butler Theatre – Opera department as wardrobe supervisor seasonally training students in wardrobe, ensuring everyone is onstage wearing what they are supposed to when they are supposed to, maintain cleanliness and solve problems while living in the basement wearing all black. I hire to do contract work for theatre, film, games, etc. Contact me: [email protected]

I excel at finding creative solutions, networking, efficiency, thoroughness, research, and providing evidence based solutions. When I headed Women In Games International Austin for 7 years I focused on diversification of the video games industry.

I am not on a lot of social media due to a history of being doxxed as an activist. I spent about a decade not making a lot of money where I was on the front lines as an activist almost getting arrested several times advocating for Gun Violence Prevention in TX right after the Sandy Hook Shooting. I did a no more names vigil in the park across from the NRA convention in Houston for 72 hours and met people who lost loved ones at mass shootings. We built Occupy the NRA and I managed 200 volunteers. I covered policy and advised orgs what actions to take. I had my information spread and then was harassed on the internet for supporting LGBTQ+ rights and reproductive rights by white supremacists on Twitter and when I reported them nothing happened so I left Twitter years ago. I was on the Board of NARAL prochoice TX for 2 years. I had a front row seat the day Wendy Davis filibustered and sat there all day, I almost got arrested that day too. I’ve had people yell in my face I’m going to hell for being queer or say I’m going to hell because I don’t go to church or bc I use birth control proudly. I also got harassed during GamerGate. I had to change how I approached my work when it affected my health and come up with a long term approach. Which led to my radio show, art I can do what I want when I want, and acupuncture that I use to heal people on the front lines in various spaces. To me everything I do is connected.

I play games, currently DND and Classic WOW are my focus. I also garden, read, and love travel.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Neither of my parents were supportive of me going into the arts. My father wanted me to go to Texas Tech where he graduated in Oil Mechanical Engineering. I was shut down by both of them constantly and I don’t believe they realized how damaging it was to my mental health or my confidence. My parents divorced when I was 6 and I’m glad they did, but my sister abused me most of my life and so my creative world, watching films, and later musicals and plays were my escape. They showed me possibilities, and developed my inner world which is incredibly vast. It’s been under appreciated and not fully explored either. My father saw one show I was in when I was in college and when he showed up by surprise I had a panic attack because I wasn’t used to his support. My mom has seen a few theatre productions I’ve done as an adult and I had her on my radio show once to discuss having children in different countries. I came out to my father multiple times and he continued to say he hoped I’d find a nice Christian man to marry then have a child with, I asked him why. He said, that’s what you are supposed to do. My mother doesn’t listen to my show, hasn’t come to see an opera I’ve worked on, told me she doesn’t like my poetry because it made her sad so I stopped showing her my written work. I stopped showing them a lot of my creative work because it honestly caused me pain. If they saw it they could feel however they wanted but I didn’t have to be there to react to their reaction.

Despite the lack of my parents support I continued to create art and find community in creative worlds and the LGBTQ+ queermunity where so many other people had similar experiences and we could share our stories. My relationship with my parents is what it’s going to be. The hardest lesson I’ve had to face is accepting people for who they are instead of wishing they were different when I can’t make those wishes come true and they only cause me pain.

Quite often straight people don’t understand queer expression and it’s difficult to explain it.

Non theatre people don’t understand how theatre people communicate especially actors who just break out in random character voices with each other accents. Or singers who break out in song, “Can You Hear the People Sing…”.

In my core when people would try to tell me how to live my life I’d get angry and think “these are my people, this is my home and you don’t understand. I’ll show you why you’re wrong and do it my way.”

It has definitely been one hell of an adventure. Don’t let the naysayers get you down.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I absolutely love the audience experience. When you get a great and engaged audience it’s everything. Everyone involved in the production is connected in this unified high and it all works seamlessly. It’s insane.

I love hearing people tell me about listening to my show. One person said they were listening to me talk monotone about erectile dysfunction and couldn’t tell if it was a farce or what they were so caught off guard they almost crashed on their bicycle. I cracked up so hard. I found out a professor was listening to me talk about furries and it was his first time learning about it, he was so blown away. These are topics so normalized to me that I enjoy introducing people to them.

When your concept connects with an audience you tingle and it’s worth all the exhaustion, sweat, and time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://koop.org/program/reflections-of-community-outreach/
• Instagram: @sexedshow
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=1143717750
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-ross-5673b220/
• Other: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100070141868182 [email protected]

Image Credits
Maria Gotay – logo Photo – Liz Ross, selfie